March 6, 2009:
Although a funding gap of about $11 million to build the Peoria Riverfront Museum would remain even if Peoria County voters approve a sales tax increase next month, project officials say they are confident a successful referendum will trigger the final donations.
“We will go out after the referendum is passed, and while it won’t be a piece of cake, we do feel that once we get over the hurdle of the referendum, the other $11 million can be put together,” said Mark Johnson, project manager of the Caterpillar Experience, the Cat visitor’s center that will share the Downtown block with the museum.
April 8, 2009:
The $40 million county contribution to the $77 million museum doesn’t fully fund the project; a $10 million funding gap remains…. Officials are looking at the possibility of federal economic stimulus money to help pay for the parking garage and other public money in a capital budget out of Springfield. Vergon said he thinks the money will be raised one way or another.
“We’ve got a capital campaign to restart,” he said. “It shouldn’t be too difficult to do that because most of the people that had not pledged or committed were concerned whether we’d get all the public money or not, and it looks like that seems to be behind us now.”
May 21, 2009:
Initially short about $10.2 million even with the $40 million raised through the voter-approved Peoria County sales tax increase, the funding gap to build the Peoria Riverfront Museum is narrowing.
“We knew there were people who didn’t want to formally commit to a donation until after the referendum to see which way the vote went,” said Michael Bryant, the CEO of Methodist Medical Center, who also heads the group of area leaders and business people – called the CEO Roundtable – that is raising money for the museum.
“We are seeing that those people are stepping up right now and committing money to this project.” Bryant said the new shortfall is about $7.2 million, meaning the project has received about $3 million in donations since the quarter-percent sales tax referendum was approved by voters 50.7 percent to 49.3 percent 44 days ago. “We’d like to see the gap closed all the way by the end of the summer,’ Bryant said. ‘I’m cautiously optimistic it can be done.”
Governance agreements for the Peoria Riverfront Museum are within sight, paving the way for construction to begin this summer, though the Museum Collaboration Group is saddled with a $7.2 million revenue gap.
So, to sum up, there was a $10.2 to $11 million private funding gap before the referendum in 2009. Not to worry, museum supporters assured us. Once the referendum passes, they were confident they could raise the rest of the money. After the referendum passed, the CEO Roundtable went to work and raised $3 million in a little over a month.
And that’s it. Since May 2009, the funding gap has remained at $7.2 million. A child conceived when the last dollar was raised for the museum could have been born by now.
Not to worry, though. Lakeview Museum Board of Directors Chairman Tom Bardwell told the County Board on Thursday how they plan to close that gap:
We strongly believe that, through research and also conversations in the community and everything that’s happening right now, we believe there’s about $4 million that can be raised in private dollars here in Peoria County or in the local area.
We also believe there’s about a million and a half dollars — in fact, we have a target for about $3 million of line-of-sight that we can see, but let’s be conservative and say a million and a half dollars — from either grants, foundations, other government entities that may make pledges towards this project, which basically takes you five and a half million.
And then there’s also a third avenue of funding we’re pursuing — some of you may have heard some of this — something called New Market Tax Credits. New Market Tax Credits are something we’re pursuing for this project. We believe, conservatively, $4 million should be our target number.
So, our funding strategy is targeted to raise about nine and a half million dollars which is obviously about the $7.2 million gap, but obviously we want to be as conservative as possible in those numbers, so we hope to get there as soon as we can….
Note that their plan to close the private funding gap includes efforts to get $4 million in public funding via the New Markets Tax Credit program. They’re also trying to get public funding from “other government entities.” And despite the fact they’ve not raised any money the past nine months, we’re supposed to believe there’s still $4 million in private funding out there based on their “research” and “conversations.” These are the same people who assured us the funding gap would be closed right after the referendum passed.
Why should we believe any of this? What possible reason is there to have any confidence in the museum group’s fundraising plans? In fact, other than the $3 million raised after the referendum passed, fundraising efforts have been effectively stalled for years, which is why the museum group came to Peoria County for tax funding in the first place.
Instead of this eternal effort to bleed the region for money, the museum should do what it should have done years ago: change its plans. Redesign the building so it’s more efficient to build. Build up instead of out, which will free up more of the block for private commercial development. Dispense with the parking deck, as there is already a glut of available parking downtown, especially along the riverfront. Cutting the deck (pun intended) and/or redesigning the building would also remove the engineering challenge/expense of putting a boomerang-shaped building partially on top of a rectangular deck. If just those things were done, millions of taxpayer dollars would be saved, and the project could be built without any additional fundraising.
The first step in problem solving is to correctly identify the problem. The problem here is not a fundraising problem. It’s a design problem. The project is too large and too expensive. Caterpillar should be using its influence to get the museum group to do their part in reducing expenses instead of bullying the County into building something unaffordable and unsustainable.